


Apples and Echoes

by Chacat



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:48:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22301353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chacat/pseuds/Chacat





	Apples and Echoes

Sometimes, when I eat something I haven't had in a while—unripe apples in particular, for some reason—I feel like I am on the verge of remembering something. Something big. Not big for the world, that doesn't feel right to me, but some chunk of my childhood that I had forgotten, or something along those lines. I've never been good at remembering events, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a year or two in my early teens of which I have no memory whatsoever.

If I let my thoughts drift, I can see myself sitting in an apple tree, talking to a friend. I'm sure that I had close friends as a child, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit I can no longer remember their names. I've not seen them in years. Still, the image of a blond boy sitting on another branch, munching on an apple, it feels right. When I have thoughts like this I file them away, to ask my parents who that might have been, but I always forget.

My memories are selective. I remember things that are like the present—or perhaps I just remember everything as if it's like the present. When I'm happy, I look back on my life and it seems like one joyous event after another. When I'm sad, it seems like I've faced nothing but failure all my life. Perhaps I am unable to remember my childhood because I am no longer a child. I wonder, sometimes, whether everyone experiences things like this, or if it is a quirk of my memory in particular. What's the point of memory if you can only remember things when they're happening again?

Before I started writing this, I was lying in bed and I had a song stuck in my head. Song isn't the right word—a melody. I wonder if it means that there was some time, long ago, that I lay in bed and was trying to fall asleep, and someone nearby was playing something. We lived in an apartment building when I was five, so it could have happened. I can still vaguely remember bits of that room, it was our living room, but we didn't have much space so it was my bedroom, too. It would not be so strange for some neighbour's daughter to be practising the piano while I tried to fall asleep. She would have been playing etudes, playing a little and then starting anew. She would sing along sometimes, I think, and I'd hear just the slightest hint of her voice through the wall.

Usually, when I have these memories, they feel inexplicably good. They're not just bits of life: they feel like bits of life that was somehow more real, more true. They feel like if I could only reach out and grasp them, my life would fall into place. It's strange, because I don't remember very much good about my childhood, not even when I'm feeling very good indeed. But then, I suppose I don't remember very much of it at all. Maybe the joy of remembering is what makes it feel so wholesome.

Today is one of those rare days. It's almost as if I can hear her right now, so close, an angelic singing coming closer and closer. The memories are coming back and it feels so good: it _did_ happen, and I don't know how I managed to forget about that, but it's happened so many times since! I need to ask my parents later who that girl was—but no, there she is herself, standing in my doorway!

She doesn't mind if I keep writing, I think. She is so beautiful, and her singing is so lovely. If we weren't friends since I was a child, I think her appearance could scare me, but I know her too well for that. Her purple-red skin, her many eyes, her gentle feelers concealing where a human's mouth would be—I feel guilty that I do not think of her more often. I know she just wants me to sit and do whatever I was doing, and so I do, I write. She comes and hugs me, and nuzzles the back of my head, and I am at peace.

Bliss. Pure bliss.

Note: I think I fell asleep while writing this piece, I don't remember writing the last bit at all. Dreams are a funny thing, aren't they? I'll keep it in, maybe someone can tell me what it says about me.


End file.
